“Caldera Systems Inc.’s acquisition of the Unix server and
services businesses of The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. (SCO) gives
Caldera access to a large installed base of users and a strong
distribution channel. But doubts are emerging on whether Caldera
can successfully merge open source and proprietary product lines
without betraying its roots in the Linux community.”
“I’m very skeptical about this deal,” said Stacey Quandt, an
analyst at Giga Information Group Inc. in Santa Clara, Calif.
“They can’t [release UnixWare] under the General Public License
because there are probably parts of code that belong to third
parties. They are walking a thin line between open source and a
proprietary operating system….“
“In a conference call with analysts, Caldera CEO Ransom Love
said it isn’t yet clear under what type of license the SCO
technologies will be released. He said developers would get access
to source code but that Caldera would hold on to ownership of some
of the code. “Ownership [of code] is not a bad thing; it’s actually
a good thing,” said Love. “It protects [code] quality.”